How the Royal British Legion developed the new plastic-free poppy

As the Royal British Legion reveals its new plastic-free poppy, the biggest redesign in 28 years, our Environment and Sustainability Advisor Phil Prior explains how it was created.

At the Royal British Legion, we want to ensure that the service and sacrifice of our Armed Forces community is always remembered but we are also committed to reducing our environmental impact. That’s why we are so proud to launch a new poppy this year, the biggest redesign in 28 years, ensuring our poppy is still iconic but is also completely plastic-free.

For the past three years, we have worked alongside our sister charity Poppyscotland with industry experts to create a 100% paper poppy that can be recycled through ordinary household recycling collections.

Assessing the lifecycle of the poppy

For a plastic-free poppy to be truly viable we needed to assess the entire lifecycle of the design: From the sourcing of raw materials, through to the ease of recycling - while never losing sight of the need to maintain the strength, durability and iconic design of the poppy.

Cumbria-based paper manufacturing firm James Cropper Paper & Packaging , which has produced the red and green paper used in the poppy for more than 40 years, was drafted in to help develop a recyclable paper blend that could replace the traditional poppy.

A combination of paper made from 50% renewable wood fibre - from sustainable forestry - and 50% waste-paper, left over from the offcuts in the production of coffee cups, was developed. The new paper formula was found to be the best at holding the poppy’s traditional green and red colours, as well as having the strength, fade-resistance and being colour-fast like the traditional poppy.

We worked in collaboration with award-winning design house Matter to develop a poppy that honoured the visual strengths of the previous poppy – the two red petals, green leaf and green stem.

Reducing carbon footprint

We then measured the carbon footprint of the poppy with the help of researchers from University College London (UCL), who carried out a Life Cycle Assessment.

Professor Paola Lettieri (FREng), from University College London’s Department of Chemical Engineering who worked with RBL to conduct the Life Cycle Assessment on the new poppy to understand the environmental impacts of the change in materials, said:

“We appreciate the significance of the poppy and were delighted to be invited to assess the plastic-free poppy’s environmental impact and to suggest how it could be made more sustainable. We looked at its carbon footprint and factors like how much water and resources go into making it, in what’s called a Life Cycle Assessment. By replacing the single-use plastic with a paper-based design, and increasing the amount of recycled paper used, UCL found that the new poppy design has a 40% smaller carbon footprint and a similar reduction in its overall impact on the environment.”

Experts tested the colourfastness of the plastic-free poppy by placing samples on a range of materials, simulating a rain shower and drying them at 60 °C to check the poppy did not ‘bleed’. The durability of the new poppy was also verified, with testers submerging it in water to simulate it falling into a puddle, and wearing it during a range of everyday activities, including dog walking, mowing, cooking and jogging. To produce the new poppy, we needed new machines. These were produced by a British company Sewtec and are now fully operational at our poppy manufacturing HQ at Aylesford, Kent.

Our commitment to reducing use of plastic

We want to use up existing stock of our traditional poppy and therefore we have a blended approach, with the public able to get both kinds of poppies this year. However, we are committed to reducing plastic overall so have also scrapped the plastic packaging used to transport the pins that fix Remembrance poppies to clothing. Single-use plastic poppies used on wooden tributes have been replaced with printed poppies, and plastic leaves and plastic card envelopes from Remembrance wreaths have been replaced with paper alternatives. Work is also underway to reduce the plastic used in wreath bases by 9%.

We are so proud to have developed a new plastic-free poppy that will serve as a more sustainable symbol of remembering the service and sacrifice of the Armed Forces community and can’t wait to see it worn across the UK during this year's Poppy Appeal.